Indian Rock Music and its influence on the Bollywood

The history of Rock music in India can be dated back to 1960s where bands like The Mystiks(Bombay),
Beat-X (Madras) and The Flintstones (Calcutta), playing early British Invasion and Sgt.Pepper Hard Rock,
established the trend of Rock music in India. However, they weren't given much recognition. Bollywood,
at that time was dominated by semi-classical and 'filmy' music. The most prominent and revolutionary
music director and composer in the industry, who cultivated unique blend of genres and sounds ranging
from electronic to rock to Arabic was Rahul Dev Burman (R.D.Burman). He often mixed rock elements
with Bengali folk music. He was later overpowered by the "Disco" movement, brought in by Bappi Lahiri.
1991 was the year liberalization took place in India. The country was finally open to the world market
which resulted in the facilitation and easier exchange of products and ideas. With the steady growth of
technology, music cassettes and records becoming considerably cheaper than ever before, more and
more people started purchasing and listening to world music. Bands started popping up like mushrooms.
Rock and Metal were genres that were highly youth-oriented. They sounded raw, punchy and quite
different from the prevalent commercial music scene. A.R.Rehman, a prolific Indian Music Composer
during the 90s composed many music scores which had prominent influences of rock, Latin, and other
world music elements. Some of his works are "Dil se", "Maa tujhe salaam" etc.
Shankar Ehsaan Loy, a trio of talented musicians created scores for the film "Dil Chahta Hai" (2003). The
scores had prominent bass lines and grooves that made the songs distinct and one could identify a sort
of freshness in them. The youth liked it. By the 2000s, the Internet had become a viral phenomenon and
it was being used by anyone who could afford it. As a result, the youth could surf the web and find
abundant resources online. They could watch, listen and go through music from any band. Furthermore,
they even had access to music-scores. The B-Town maestros were quick to identify the kind of taste the
audience was looking for and soon we found bands like "Indian Ocean" and "Agnee" giving background
scores and songs as well to commercial media. With movies like "Rock On!" and "Rockstar" the
influence of Rock on the commercial scene became more prominent.
However, if we pick up a few individual tracks or background scores to comprehend the change in
influence, it wouldn't be that appropriate. In order to better understand the impact and the journey of
this transition of influence, we need to look at it with a wider scope in chronological order, to have a
better understanding of it.